Yesterday was an all day sea bass run. The fish were there in numbers! They need to be 12 1/2 inches to keep and about 9 out of ten were a quarter inch short. Still we pieced together our limit of 50 out of i'm guessing 500 we caught.Our youngest caught a dandy tog which he proudly released.Our lady angler got two of three "dinner plate" porgies that we added.We kept a couple shark bait bluefish from a blitz we found on the way home.Most of our sea bass trips are half day but they had so much fun we stretched to all day.Gotta love sea bass!
We were supposed to be done with striped bass but had to stretch it a day to make up for a weather cancellation. That always makes me nervous. Our last trip was outstanding and would have been a great finish to the season. Fish had been giving lots of signs the run might be near its end. Some had dropped their eggs and some about to. Full moon. Warm water. Heavy weather last night then stiff wind this morning had me worried. The guests arrived and could see they could take a little chop.
We scored quick with a 29” keeper. That was followed by two 36” studs. Things got quiet. A pair of 32” rounded out our limit. I poked around some then the mother load showed up! It was on fire! We went at it hard and released 28 fish to 44 inches during the next two hours! All that worry in the night for nothing. ?
When a plan comes together! I had a great deckhand for i guess 15 or so years.should really call him equal as we made a hell of a team! Colin bumped into an old Florida client,Dave,and they hatched the idea of diong an exploration run with me.They added Colin's cousin Lindsay and her BF Nick I What a great reunion it would be!What to fish for? They all surf fish and tired of striped bass.Ok let's do sea bass... Wind building to 20 put that idea down.That left Fluke?
Colin and I had some sneaky spots for them and even sneakier tactics.Lindsay was first to arrive.Last time I saw her she was just a little kid.Drop dead gorgeous women now.Could be a model but took the noble step of becoming an EMT.Soon we hit the water.The Fluke were haed to come by for a while.Dani was the first to score then we dialed them in, blistering a bunch to 25 inchies Great ratio of keepers!
We did some looking around as we ran. Decided to go where we left them biting yesterday. Good call. Within a couple minutes of setting the bait spread out we collected our first bass of the day. The pick was good for a while then got quiet. We trolled to a spot that produced earlier in n the week and it was nonstop action. Most were keepers with a few throw backs. We did hook one slob monster beast and luck wasn’t with us. A sailboat under power in the middle of nowhere decided to alter course and run our fish over. In the end though, Igor and his group had a great day.
Machine lit up like a christmas tree but they had lock jaw for quite a whilr.Then someone flipped the switch and it was a steadynpick on most anything we threw at them,No studs or shorts fish.all slots 29-32" and a bluefish fi]or grinds.